


The Flock

by Readertee



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: But that's only mentioned at the end, Ettersberg makes everything sad, Gen, Nightingale is awesome OK?, Speculation on British wizardry over the centuries, tiny fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 02:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4462142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readertee/pseuds/Readertee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightingale was not the first.<br/>Merlin, Snipe, Raven, Robin, Wren...there's a reason strange cases come under Falcon. The name of the greatest magician of the age was a bird's name. Here are some of their stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flock

Merlin was the first, of course. Oh, not the first wizard or even the first British wizard; merely the first mage to be given high status in the camp of the _Dux Bellorum_. For such Arthur was, then: the Kings of the British nations let him have power only over their armies, not their lands, as was necessary to drive out the hated Saxons - and even that failed in the end.

 

The Knights thought themselves very clever when they started calling his protégé Nimue 'Merlin's Swan'. She advised Arthur after her mentor's disappearance, though he also taught several knights the mystic arts, and so began a tradition which lasted beyond Camlann, beyond Albion, for as long as the memory of magic remained in wind and tree and water.

 

The City of London only existed due to the support of the Snipe, who despised the Normans with all he had. London Town grew around it, but that was no matter. He walked in London Town every night for decades and never was caught, though the guards wanted his head - the benefits of magic.

 

No one ever knew the Wren was female - certainly her body could not have given her away, matching their notions of male as it did. She served in Henry's army all the same, as a 'man' of Lancaster must, and died upon Bosworth Field.

 

The tales of Robin Hood were well-loved by the Robin, which is probably the reason for her friends giving her the name, though she never stole in all her life. She organised evacuation of as many as she could during the Great Fire of London, and a few areas were kept as untouched as she could make them with a curse upon the flames.

 

The Raven never left London all her life, and few until her death ever knew she had magic but her brother, who taught her; but without her tireless campaigns in the corridors of Whitehall and calculated discussions with ministers and their wives over vol-au-vents, magic would never have been discussed in Parliament. True, fraud was not much better than witchcraft (for evil magic was witchcraft, and the people were forgetting the Cunning Folk), but at least fraud was not a capital offence.

 

Newton's new magic was rejected by the mainstream for decades even after his death, until the Raven's successor was taught. He built the first version of the Folly to strengthen ties with politicians and generals, and was named the Owl by all who heard of it - Parliament being his main concern.

 

When the Falcon joined the Bow Street Runners there was an outcry at the Folly. Thief-taking was no profession for a respectable gentleman of the Wise, no matter how backwards! (And surely he must be backwards, the gossips whispered - his father was from the Highlands, you'll find nowhere more backwards unless it's the Welsh valleys!) Meanwhile every copper in London knew that if you found weird shit it was a Falcon case. The Folly quietly expanded to include police liaisons, and by his retirement that section had its own building and squad of coppers.

 

Nightingale's name was pure coincidence, no really, though it did mean that his colleagues had an easy time coming up with nicknames. The Empire's height led to all manner of wizards going rogue all over the world, and it was his job to clear it up. Who else? He never bothered much with systems beyond the Newtonian tradition - he had enough on his plate. The fact that he was the best at offensive magic the Folly had ever seen helped persuade practitioners to keep their heads down, lest he find the need to change this.

 

After Ettersberg, Nightingale was the last for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> I began to wonder, when I read Rivers of London, why all the bird names? Nightingale was, well, the Nightingale; Peter was Nightingale's Starling; and so on. Then I remembered that Merlin was the name of a bird, specifically a type of falcon once colloquially known as a pigeon hawk in North America, and this was the result. Um. Enjoy?
> 
> (Edited because an earlier version of the Robin, who was male rather than female, snuck in there.)


End file.
